​US South Atlantic Division Best in State Rankings 2018

Our Best in State
biennial re-ranking exercise for the United States of America reaches
the halfway stage with this news release for the eight South Atlantic
states of Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

In this revision,
we’ve expanded four of those state charts so there are now four
hundred and five different courses featured across this geographical
region, almost double the number listed in our inaugural 2012 state
listings three editions ago.

In the last few
months, we’ve processed the Pacific, Mountain, East South Central
and West South Central Divisions and, before the summer is over,
we’ll have updated the standings for states in West and East North
Central, the Mid-Atlantic and New England Divisions.

But
first to matters in hand and The South Atlantic region which has
seventeen courses currently occupying positions in our
US Top 100,
making it one of the nation’s strongest golfing territories. We
start in Delaware, the second smallest state in the USA with a
population of around one million.

Delaware

Located
an hour’s drive north of Dover, the state capital, lies the small
town of Greenville in New Castle County, where the
Bidermann
course displaces Wilmington's South course as the number 1 golfing
layout in our First State rankings. Redesigned by Dick Wilson in the
mid-1960s, the Bidermann course sees less than ten thousand rounds
played on it during the year, hence there’s no need to allocate tee
times for a membership numbering fewer than three hundred.

The only new entry
in the state chart arrives at number 14 and it’s a mid-1980s design
from Algie M. Pulley at Cripple Creek Golf and Country Club near
Bethany Beach which has recently had its fairways and approach areas
successfully converted to Latitude 36 bermuda grass. The club has
also increased the size of its short game practice area, allowing
more players to hone their chipping and putting skills.

The
Sunshine State is a golfing powerhouse, with the top half dozen
tracks in Florida also ranked nationally. The state Top 100 is headed
by the Donald Ross-designed course at
Seminole
in Juno Beach, where two of our well-travelled correspondents paid a
visit last year. Javier Pintos, our Argentina correspondent, called
it both “special” and “charming” with David Davis, our
International Correspondent declaring it “one of the best routed
and most interesting courses in the world”.

The
two older, more established tracks at Streamsong, the Red and the
Blue, ease up one place in the new table to number 3 and number 4 but
it’s the Gil Hanse-designed
Black course
(the first of nine new entries at number 6) that’s causing a stir
since it opened last year. Our US Consultant Fergal O’Leary has
played the course, calling it a “gigantic piece of golf minimalism
of enormous scale (where) fairways, waste areas and greens are
amongst the biggest I’ve seen… the sheer scale of the property is
a lot to comprehend”.

Two
other tracks make impressive upward moves in the upper echelons of
the new state listings and they’re situated right next door to each
other in Hobe Sound. Tom Fazio’s 18-hole design at
McArthur Golf Club enters the Top 10 for the first time with a seven-place rise to
number 9 and Bobby Weed’s recent renovation of the
Medalist Golf Club course leads to a Top 20 debut after a climb of six places to number
18.

Michael
Jordan is currently building a new course near Hobe Sound called
Grove XXIII, paying homage to the number 23 he wore for most of his
basketball career. Tom Doak was considered for the project, but the
NBA legend selected Bobby Weed who will stay on site to supervise the
design process which is due to complete in 2019. We expect Grove
XXIII to feature prominently in our 2020 Florida rankings.

Still
the number one track in the Peach State standings,
Augusta National Golf Club is regarded by many as an elusive golfing shrine, the one place –
apart from the Old course at St Andrews – they would most like to
play, given the chance, which is a lot easier said than done because
invitations are very few and far between. Some might say its lavish
conditioning represents much of what’s wrong with golf in the
modern era but we’re sure such critics will be glued to their
television for four days when the Masters tournament comes around
every April.

On
the southeast perimeter of the course, across the other side of Rae’s
Creek, lies
Augusta Country Club (up five to number 8) which was formed in 1897, way before its more
famous near neighbour was ever thought about. Once a 36-hole
facility, the club now operates an 18-hole layout (formerly called
the Hill) that was redesigned by Donald Ross in 1927. Brian Silva
carried out a remarkable restoration here early in the new millennium
and this work is only now being fully appreciated.

The Crabapple course at Capital City Club (at number 17) is the highest of ten new
Georgian entries as we extend the state chart to a Top 50. A Tom
Fazio design from 2002, the course sits on a property some twenty-two
miles north of the club’s other 18-hole Brookhaven
course, located next to Atlanta National Golf Club in Milton. The
Crabapple made a big impact the year after opening when it hosted the
2003 WGC-American Express Championship which Tiger Woods won by two
strokes from three other players.

We
are keeping a watchful eye on Gil Hanse's new layout at Ohoopee Match
Club, which is due to open later this year on land formerly used for
growing onions – it's sure to make a bold statement in our 2020
rankings. According to Hanse, who was interviewed by Golf Course
Architecture; “the course is going to be a ton of fun to play, and
owner Michael Walrath founded the club to foster the experience of
match play. We have tried to design a course that will feature a lot
of half par holes and some expansive hazards. The sandy site is
conducive to that and we are excited about what we have cooked up.”

The
top three places in the Old Line State listings remain the same as
last time so the East course at
Baltimore Country Club
is still the state number 1. Laid out by A. W. Tillinghast in 1926,
the course – known locally as Five Farms – has hosted many
prestigious amateur and professional events, including the 1928 PGA
Championship, the 1932 US Amateur, the 1965 Walker Cup and the 1988
US Women’s Open. Keith Foster completed a well-received restoration
of the course in 2015, reviving much of the original design intent.

The first of three
new entries appears at number 15 and it’s The Links at Perry Cabin
near St Michael’s in Talbot County. The course was originally built
by Andy Dye in the 1960s but it fell on hard times and closed in
2015. The rebuilt layout is another Dye family production and this
time it’s a collaboration between P.B. Dye
and his parents Pete and Alice Dye, featuring a brilliant Biarritz
green on the par three 7th and an iconic island green on the par
three 17th.

The
fabled
No.2 course at the Pinehurst Resort
in Moore County sits atop our chart for the Tar Heel State, which
we’ve now increased in size to a Top 75. Designed by Donald Ross in
1907, the layout was tweaked on an almost continual basis by the old
master right up until he died in 1948, and Bill Coore and Ben
Crenshaw’s recent renovation has breathed new life into an old
golfing masterpiece that certainly looked at its very best during
both the US Open and US Women’s Open in 2014.

Regular
contributor M. James Ward had this to say about the course last year:
“Pinehurst #2 is one of those few ‘must’ plays for the
architectural cognoscenti. If one can secure permission, it pays to
walk the course prior to any round and really see the manner in which
the ‘small details’ all add up… #2 is number one in my book for
any design student to view first hand. If the opportunity allows to
play enough rounds the discerning elements will only add to your
enjoyment in playing this iconic layout.”

Another
couple of Donald Ross tracks enter the Top 10:
Roaring Gap Club
thunders up the listings from number 12 to number 6 and Mid Pines Club advances nine places to number 8.

Our aforementioned
raters Fergal O’Leary and David Davis visited Roaring Gap
independently not so long ago and they mentioned there was “plenty
of charm about this massively underrated course” located on “a
great and interesting property” whilst another of our top
reviewers, Richard Smith, played Mid Pines Club just a few weeks ago,
when he said: “In Contrast to modern designs, which seek to
intimidate the golfer while actually allowing for quite a bit of room
for most shots, designer Donald Ross accomplished the opposite here.
Relatively benign and open holes actually require very precise
placement to play the hole properly.”

The highest new
entry at number 23 is the Elk River Club in Avery County, positioned
at an altitude of 3,500 feet above sea level in the Blue Ridge
Mountains between the ski resorts of Sugar Mountain and Beech
Mountain. Despite the fabulous mountain scenery that surrounds the
layout, the fairways actually occupy quite flat terrain and the
course had the distinction in 1984 of being the first Jack Nicklaus
Signature Course to open in North Carolina.

The
Palmetto State has had another handful of courses added to its
ranking chart so we now highlight the Top 80 layouts in South
Carolina. The
Ocean course at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort
retains its status as the number 1 course in the state and many
consider it to be one of Pete Dye’s best designs. Opened just in
time to host the 29th edition of Ryder Cup matches in 1991, the Ocean
course is one of five 18-hole layouts within a fabulous resort that
offers ninety holes of championship golf in a stunning location
overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Three courses make
noteworthy progress inside the new table’s Top 10 positions.

At
number 4 (up three places) there’s the Robert Trent Jones
Snr-designed layout at
The Dunes Golf & Beach Club
in Myrtle Beach, site of the US Women’s Open in 1962, which has
been providing a stiff test for golfers since it first opened in
1948. Hard on its heels at number 5 (up six spots) comes the
much-revered (and much-revised) layout at
Palmetto Golf Club
in Aiken, where many top architects – Gil Hanse the latest – have
had a hand restoring the course back to its 1895 origins. And at
number 7 (up six places), the course at
Chechessee Creek Club
near Okatie is a Coore & Crenshaw design – described by one
reviewer as “a tour through nature” – that’s adopted a rather
low profile since it debuted in 2000.

The
highest newcomer on the South Carolina chart emerges at a very
commendable number 12 and it’s the result of a philanthropic
project developed between the small settlements of Ridgeland and
Grays in Jasper County by a couple of high-end private golf club
owners in The Carolinas. The course at
Congaree Golf Club
is a Tom Fazio layout set within a vast site that was once nothing
other than a rice plantation and the architect has routed the
fairways around an old plantation house, stables and courtyard,
affording a painstakingly preserved 19th century ambiance equivalent
to, as one recent reviewer wrote, being “invited behind the
curtains to witness a land where time has no meaning”.

We’ve
added another ten courses to the Old Dominion chart to form a state
Top 50 which is still led by the
Kinloch Golf Club
in Goochland County at number 1. Designed by architect Lester George
in conjunction with Vinnie Giles, the US Amateur champion in 1972
(who also won the British equivalent three years later), the course
exhibits something of a split personality as the front nine is routed
through forested terrain with the back nine laid out around an
enormous 70-acre lake.

The most
significant leap up the listings is made by the newly upgraded
18-hole layout in Albemarle County called
Full Cry at Keswick Hall,
soaring eighteen places to number 7. The original course dates back
to 1949 though Arnold Palmer upgraded this layout in the early 1990s.
When the property changed hands in 2012, Pete Dye was called in to
redesign the course and he’s added more than a thousand yards to
the length while simultaneously changing the par on more than half
the holes.

The new entry to
make the biggest impression in this chart is
Boonsboro Country Club
in Lynchburg (new at number 14) where Willie Park Jnr arrived in 1922
to set out a course for the club which Fred Findlay eventually
completed seven years later. Modifications have been made since then,
of course, most appreciably in 1964 when holes were re-sequenced due
to the construction of a swimming pool and in 1981 when Rees Jones
carried out some work.

Donald Ross and
William Flynn's historic legacies at Washington Golf & Country Club in
Arlington are currently being renovated as is Mike Stranz's layout at Royal New Kent. It
remains to be seen where these rejuvenated courses will land in our 2020
rankings.

The
courses in the top five positons in the Mountain State chart remain
as they were before this latest reappraisal took place which means
the 18-hole layout at the
Pete Dye Golf Club
in Bridgeport remains in the number 1 slot. Situated in the hill
country of Harrison County, the course is laid out on the site of an
old coal mine so there are various reminders of the property’s
former use dotted around the layout. Opened in 1994, it actually took
all of sixteen years to get the project off the drawing board and
into play!

The only West
Virginian new entry is the Woodhaven course at Glade Springs in
Raleigh County, replacing the Greenbriar course at the Greenbriar
Resort which is currently closed for reconstruction by Phil
Mickelson’s design firm. The Tom Clark-designed Woodhaven is the
toughest of the three 18-hole layouts at a fabulous 54-hole resort in
Daniels, due to the undulating, forested nature of the terrain that
the course is set out on.

We’re always
happy to receive feedback when we update our US Best in State charts
so feel free to let us know what you think of these eight listings.
Is there perhaps a course that shouldn’t have made the cut or maybe
there’s another which is due a position in one of the state tables?
Whatever you’re thinking, please click the “Respond to this
article” link at the top or at the bottom of this page to share
your thoughts with us.